Schöne
by gothicbutterfly95
Summary: Beauty wasn't about looks. It was about what was inside. When you were beautiful inside you looked beautiful on the outside.


**This is my story for the FanFiction Gift Exchange, written for bluesatinsashes, who requested something marriage-related. I hope this fits the bill and that everyone enjoys it.**

* * *

If anyone had told Maria Rainer a year ago that she would be not only in love, but married, trading the life she had always wanted for the one she had now, she wouldn't have believed them. She might not make a very good nun, but she would be one nonetheless. It was what she had always wanted. There was no place for love, let alone marriage, in her life.

But she was not Maria Rainer. Not anymore. Now she was Maria von Trapp. And to Maria von Trapp, the love of a man and a woman was not only the most wonderful, but also the most natural thing in the world.

 _Maria von Trapp._ Had she ever really sat down and thought about it? Probably not. In more ways than one, her engagement had been a frantic time. For the first time in her life she was completely out of her element. Her time at the Abbey had been difficult and becoming a governess had been a daunting experience, but there was always something that kept her going. Though there was most definitely something to keep her going during the engagement, it had undoubtedly been harder than anything else she had ever done.

When she wasn't occupied with the preparations for the wedding or the children, her mind was wandering; thinking about her insecurities and whether she was suited to be Baroness von Trapp.

When she first met Georg she was the governess for his children. Rumours about their relationship had started before the relationship itself had, and when it was made public the gossip only intensified. They had tried to avoid it when they could, and not let it bother them when it did. That was sufficient to quell Maria's apprehension most of the time. But every once in a while she heard something or things got too overwhelming and she became fearful that the love she felt would not be enough.

Her Captain was there every time. From that very first night he had told her how much he loved her and that she had nothing to worry about. And she would smile and relax until something else happened, when he would reassure her again.

Now however, on the first night of her honeymoon, with the starlit skyline of Paris right outside the window, she could finally think about the specifics of what everything meant.

Outwardly nothing about her was different. The name she had taken, or even the wedding ring on her finger didn't seem like significant changes, though she supposed that would come in time. The real changes were those that couldn't be seen. Since her engagement, her wedding, since this very night something had happened. She felt different. She felt-

"Georg," she whispered.

Still awake, Georg turned to look at her.

"I believe," was all she said.

He smiled, knowing exactly what she meant.

* * *

 _As soon as his lips met hers, Maria lost sense of everything but that. She wasn't aware that they had made their way over to the sofa until they were there. Maybe not even then._

 _It had only been a day since she and Georg had confessed their love. She hadn't even received a proper proposal yet. But she didn't mind; whenever she was with her Captain, she felt on top of the world._

 _It had been hard admitting she was_ _in love with him_ _but now that she had she knew, somehow – it was more than belief or wishing – she knew, as long as she had Georg beside her, that she was ready for anything._

" _You are so beautiful," Georg murmured against Maria's lips._

 _She froze in his arms, and turned her head away. Maybe she wasn't ready for_ that _._

" _What's wrong?" Georg asked. Concern was apparent in his voice._

" _Nothing," she said softly. "It's just that..."_

" _Yes?"_

" _No one has ever called me beautiful before," she admitted_

" _I'm sorry for that," Georg said. He placed a light kiss on her temple. "But it's true, and you deserve to know that."_

" _Thank you," Maria said. She smiled, but her voice was thin._

 _Truthfully, hearing Georg call her beautiful didn't bother her. Though she wasn't used to being complimented at all, much less like this, her reaction ran much deeper and hearing her Captain say those words only brought back memories that she didn't want to think about._

 _Since up until very recently her ambition had been to be a nun, Maria had never thought that beauty would be something she'd have to deal with in her life. In the new life she'd embarked upon, she'd been too preoccupied to think about whether this sort of thing would happen. But it had and so, like the rest of her problems, she had to face it._

" _It – it's not just that," she added._

 _Wordlessly, she reached behind her and unbuttoned the first few buttons on her dress, which fell open to expose her upper back. When she turned around, Georg could see the network of thin white scars spread across her shoulder blades._

 _He didn't have to ask. He knew exactly who was responsible._

 _When they had talked about her past last night in the gazebo it had only been the facts; she hadn't divulged much. He knew her parents died when she was young and that she spent the next decade with an alcoholic uncle who had abused her._

 _But until today he hadn't known how._

" _These do not make you any less beautiful," he said. He had surmised that there was more to this issue when Maria had acted the way she did. Though she was humble, this reaction was not simply the result of it being the first time somebody had told her she was beautiful._

 _Leaning forward, Georg fastened the last open button, pressing his lips directly above as he did so. His lips worked their way up her back; for every kiss he fastened another button, until there were no more._

 _Maria shivered as his lips touched her skin. But she didn't forget what she needed to say._

" _When my uncle would..."she trailed off for a moment "...beat me, he would scream at me. He would tell me I was useless, good-for-nothing, unlovable..."as her voice faltered, Maria felt Georg hold her even tighter._

" _It was all I heard for ten years," she choked out. Tears were forming in her eyes. The mix of recounting the events of her childhood combined with the love her fiancé had for her had caused her to break down._

" _After a while I believed it."_

" _But that's not true_ _," Georg assured her. It hurt him to hear of the horrors that she had gone through in her past, but it at the same time, it only proved to him what a remarkable person she was._

" _Things like that don't go away easily," she smiled weakly._

 _Georg nodded solemnly. He understood that all too well. The experiences he had been through were entirely different from hers, but the grief that they both brought wasn't that different at the core._

" _But now this has happened," she spoke again, turning around to face him. She did have positive thoughts and she needed him to know. "You and the children. And us. With you, for the first time in my life, I feel wanted, needed, worthy. You make me feel beautiful. So I'm starting to believe it."_

 _Georg smiled. "I'm glad," he murmured. He drew her closer, once again pressing his lips softly to her temple._

* * *

 _They stayed on the sofa together for a while longer, though the topic of conversation shifted. They talked about the children and the rest of their engagement. They discussed the wedding and even briefly mentioned the honeymoon (though Georg would not reveal the location to his fiancée). It was only as Maria headed for the door that her Captain brought up what they had been discussing initially._

" _Promise me you will tell me when you do believe" he asked. His tone was off-handed, but at the same time very serious._

 _His tone, his expression, as well as simply the words themselves told Maria that this was important to him, and another testimony to how much he loved her. He deserved no less._

 _She nodded. "I will."_

* * *

Georg didn't speak. He didn't need to.

He had always thought something about her was beautiful. Even the day they first met. Looking back, Georg couldn't deny there was a beauty to her. Back then he wouldn't have admitted it to himself, or even thought he had felt it, but as much as she had infuriated him that day, he admired the way she held herself, her boldness at what wasn't acceptable, the way she stood up for the children, the way she comforted them during the thunderstorm.

After their argument by the lake he began to see more that was beautiful about her. Her kind spirit, her enthusiasm for life, her humility. Her voice. Oh, her voice had to be the sweetest, most beautiful sound on earth. And the more he fell in love with her, the more beauty Georg saw about her.

Everything about her was beautiful, but most, if not all of that beauty came from who she was. After all, beauty wasn't about looks. It was about what was inside. When you were beautiful inside you looked beautiful on the outside. The gossiping society women who had delighted in rumours during the engagement were attractive, but they weren't beautiful. Not like Maria was.

He was glad his wife finally knew how wonderful she was.

* * *

While her husband had been lost in thought, Maria had rolled over and was now lying on her front. Georg reached out and lightly traced one finger over her scars. Before last night he hadn't seen them since the beginning of their engagement. It occurred to him he'd never asked her how she got them.

As if she knew what he was going to say, she spoke: "It's not as bad as you think."

"Hmmm?" he asked.

"The scars," she explained, despite the fact they were both talking about the same thing and they both knew it. "It's not as bad as you think. They just happen to be the one permanent reminder."

"Would you tell me?" he asked.

"Of course," she replied. Now that they were not only married, but connected in every possible, Maria didn't think she could keep anything from her Captain, even if she had wanted to.

"It was the middle of the summer," she began, slowly turning and shifting her body so she was in a sitting position. "The loft I slept in was freezing cold in the wintertime but during summer it was the hottest place I've ever been. I used to remove everything I wore except my underwear whenever I went up there. And I did that right before I climbed up..."

Georg listened intently, gently stroking his wife's arm as she recounted, in a very calm, almost professional manner, the incident from five years earlier. As she spoke he could see the events unfolding in his head. How she received the scars that now marked her upper back. He knew simply by what she said that this was far from the worst she had endured under the care of her uncle. And yet this had been the one moment that had scarred her for life.

"I knew that night I had to get out," she continued. "I left before he woke up the next morning. I boarded a train for Vienna and didn't return for a year."

"Why did you come back?"

"I couldn't stay away," she answered with a smile. "I never felt truly comfortable in Vienna. And no matter how awful living with my uncle was, Salzburg was still my home. My mountain was there. The Abbey was there. And though I didn't know it at the time, you were there."

Georg smiled, pulling her into his arms. As he rubbed soothing circles on her back, his fingers traced the scars again, as though by doing so he was absorbing everything she had just told him.

Feeling her Captain's warm hand on her back, Maria involuntarily reached back to touch the scars. She had always thought of them as a mark of what she had overcome, but there were still times it made her sad.

Georg, sensing a shift in her mood, lifted her chin so she was looking him in the eye.

"We all have scars, Maria," he said. "Some of them we can see. Others we can't."

"Yes," she nodded. "We do."

"You are so beautiful, _mein liebe_ ," he murmured. "And you always will be."

As she lay back down, Maria smiled and gave a small nod. He was right.

Wrapped in her husband's arms while he murmured sweet nothings in her ear, Maria von Trapp drifted off to sleep truly believing for the first time in her life that she was beautiful.

* * *

 ** _Schöne_ means beautiful in German. Thank you thoroughlymodernJulie for helping me with that, and I apologise and take all the blame if it's still incorrect.**

 **Happy Holidays everyone.**


End file.
